On the Act of Defining
This post was inspired by conversations I've had recently with Trump supporters. The question of whether Trump is a Fascist frequently gets brought up, not just within these conversations, but within the broader American culture. Something very interesting happened in these conversations. One person said "Trump is not a fascist because he has not killed 12 million Jews". I found this implicit definition of Fascism quite striking, and puzzling. I responded by saying "killing Jews is not necessarily a feature of fascism. What the Nazis specifically did doesn't define Fascism more broadly considering figures like Franco and Salazar." They responded by saying "then what's an objective definition of Fascism?" They were really stressing this "objective" aspect of the term. I found this quite interesting because it revealed a significant misunderstanding of what definitions are, how we use them, and more broadly how concepts are used and evo...